Monday, May 5, 2014

The Final Stretch and Farewell

April 16th - 26th, 2014 (Plus a little bit of April 27th-May 5th!)

Those last ten days got a little hectic. But I owe you a recap and final thoughts of my last week in the New York Arts Program.

I met with a woman from Hachette Book Group who is in marketing. In all honesty I think the coolest tidbit I got from that is that she is paid to go to Comic Con and a bunch of other Cons a few times a year. Yes, she has to be at a table to hand out Hachette Books (they did the Twilight graphic novel, for starters), but that doesn't mean she can't get a stand-in and wander some, either. She is one of my supervisor's friends, and so before work one day I took a subway and a shuttle to Grand Central, walked around the corner and into this ginormous and intimidating building that has those kinds of elevators that go so high so fast that your ears pop. Everything was businesslike, dark colors-bright lights, and shiny in there.

I also went home for Easter weekend, and my roommate even crashed a night but had to go back early to help set up for her art show to display the first chapter of her comic book. Family, food, and cat--who is now my 15-year-old kitten as of that weekend!!!--were all lovely, but it was also a weekend of work!
Sunday evening rolled around, visiting family and friends departed, and that awkward parental question of "So...when are you leaving?" Answer: "Whenever my project's done." I commuted into the city the next morning. But I did finish my project--a short story about a seven-year-old and his imagination that I also illustrated--turned it in, and have gotten it back with notes!

It still needs a few things here and there, but I'm happy with it. And the illustrations were fun. Like this one:


The art show that my roommate and other housemates were in went very well; there were photo series, clothing designs, comic pages, documentaries--some executed better than others, but that's what experimenting is for. The Actor friend's final project was acting in an intern-written one act at the Ensemble Studio Theatre called House Broken. (Show #12. BAM.) It was funny! Man gets a tree through his roof, comes home to avoid his bigger problem that an old flame--the lost love of his life--is getting married and he got an invite. (The Actor is the guy in the bottom left corner of the playbill.)

My adviser took our small group out to dinner. Since there were all of five of us instead of his last semester of a dozen students, our budget was bigger than he expected which meant we were taken to a really fancy French restaurant. They also had paper table cloths and I had a pen. Cartoons ensued and my adviser had me tear it free so he could take it home, water rings and food stains and all! To each his own.

The Texans and I also had one last run to French Roast for coffee and dessert, I scheduled social media at DAW a week beyond my  last day plus a little something for release day May 6th, got a few last minute free books, celebrated my and the other intern's semester with them (there was cake!), hung out with a high school buddy--and basically everything was chaotically packed into those few days but really nice.

My dad came to pick me up and it turns out there was a street fair happening, and it was sunny and gorgeous outside. As far as send offs go, I was pleased.

Yeah.That was my semester, and it feels weird not needing to go back into DAW. I turned in my ID card (right), walked out, and that was it.

I'm currently back at school visiting seniors before they graduate, seeing friends, going to final performances and a theatre banquet that announced next year's shows, meeting with my professor about my senior project next year and what I have to get done over the summer...

The strange part about being back at school is it almost feels like I never left, because I still have all these places to be and I'm still hanging out with the same friends, but I've got no stress or deadlines. I'm just drifting around until I go home and am thrown into my summer schedule. It's nice, but odd. And when I come back, I'm to contact my supervisor at DAW to see about meeting another one of her publisher friends in the city, which is neat because it means my contacts are not totally severed after the program terminated. I still have things to keep me tied to the city until I graduate in December and might be able to get a real job then. Woo!

So what'd I do in New York this semester?

Read fantasy and science fiction everyday, wrote about them, did some social media and organizational things, made my resume look snazzy and professional, saw twelve shows, helped submit someone's play to the Fringe Festival, and networked.

There were ups and downs to everything, of course, but above all what my experience did was helped me network; meeting people is what makes cities such great places of opportunity as well as expense. Unnerving, exciting, loud, peaceful, tiny, BIG, dirty, shiny--all of these opposites coming together to make up one place. It's strange, and while I still don't think I'd categorize myself to ultimately be a city person, I kind of like it. I may well be coming back to a place like this to see out my 20s.

Thanks to everyone who have kept up with my blog this semester, and I hope it's been entertaining if not occasionally insightful! Feel free to post any other questions about my internship/NYC experience below!